RwandAir partners with Save a Child’s Heart

Eight children, four mothers, one doctor and one nurse will depart to Tel Aviv at 00:30 (local time) tomorrow morning in one of the first RwandAir direct flights from Kigali to Tel Aviv.

The partnership is a result of the airline's new route to Tel Aviv, RwandAir’s 29th destination. RwandAir inaugurated this new non-stop line on the 25th of June 2019, following an aviation agreement signed between the governments of Israel and Rwanda earlier this year.

“RwandAir is delighted to partner with SACH and support its good cause to improve the quality and accessibility of cardiac treatment for children from developing countries,” said Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the CEO of RwandAir. She added that, “the social issues that affect the communities we operate in have always been part of our mission.”

The eight children travelling to Israel were screened and diagnosed last year in Rwanda by a SACH visiting team from Israel at the Kigali Teaching Hospital. The SACH team worked side by side with their Rwandan partners, Dr. Emmanuel Rusingiza Kamanzi and Dr. Joseph Mucumbitsi, to examine 47 children with heart disease.

In the next few weeks the eight children will undergo lifesaving heart treatment at Wolfson Medical Center, and following their treatment they are expected to recover at the SACH’s recovery home alongside children from Tanzania, Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Iraq, Solomon Islands and the Palestinian Authority. 

Save a Child’s Heart executive director Simon Fisher said; “This new direct flight between Kigali and Tel Aviv will greatly support our ability to save many more young Rwandan lives in this Israeli-Rwandan partnership”.